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Red Alert: A Path Beyond updated to version 3.5!

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The Red Alert: A Path Beyond team has made a comeback update to v3.5, accompanied with the above Delta trailer.
The mod has been around a very long time, and still holds its own well against other modern iterations of Renegade.

Quote:

For those of you who don't know what RA:APB is, it's a first person shooter set in the universe of Red Alert 1. In the game you can drive all kinds of awesome vehicles from Red Alert, like Mammoth Tanks, Tesla Tanks, Mine Layers, Submarines, Cruisers, Yaks, and Longbows!
We have our own easy-to-use launcher that handles the installation of our community games, so come and check out our latest update and join us in-game this weekend! ????
Click here for Download and Update Notes

Red Alert: A Path Beyond updated to version 3.5!

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The Red Alert: A Path Beyond team has made a comeback update to v3.5, accompanied with the above Delta trailer.
The mod has been around a very long time, and still holds its own well against other modern iterations of Renegade.

Quote:

For those of you who don't know what RA:APB is, it's a first person shooter set in the universe of Red Alert 1. In the game you can drive all kinds of awesome vehicles from Red Alert, like Mammoth Tanks, Tesla Tanks, Mine Layers, Submarines, Cruisers, Yaks, and Longbows!
We have our own easy-to-use launcher that handles the installation of our community games, so come and check out our latest update and join us in-game this weekend! ????
Click here for Download and Update Notes

Red Alert: A Path Beyond updated to version 3.5!

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The Red Alert: A Path Beyond team has made a comeback update to v3.5, accompanied with the above Delta trailer.
The mod has been around a very long time, and still holds its own well against other modern iterations of Renegade.

Quote:

For those of you who don't know what RA:APB is, it's a first person shooter set in the universe of Red Alert 1. In the game you can drive all kinds of awesome vehicles from Red Alert, like Mammoth Tanks, Tesla Tanks, Mine Layers, Submarines, Cruisers, Yaks, and Longbows!
We have our own easy-to-use launcher that handles the installation of our community games, so come and check out our latest update and join us in-game this weekend! ????
Click here for Download and Update Notes

OpenSage Blender Plugin 0.5 has been released!

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For those modding Renegade, Generals and Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 1 and 2, Command & Conquer 3 and Red Alert 3 here's good news: your favorite and only Blender Plugin from OpenSage, that exports W3D and W3X models from Blender, has been updated once again.



The version 0.5 has several bug fixes that makes the exporter more reliable. Here's the change list:

Quote:

- use proper enums for vertex material shader properties
- create pivots for meshes on export if they have no parent bone
- create a bone for each hierarchy pivot on import (otherwise pivot order can not be maintained on roundtrip)
- reduced export time for meshes (O(n*n) -> O(n))
- handle empty/invalid/default materials correctly on export
- Bugfix: texture name got falsely '.dds' appended on export
- Bugfix: export proper opacity value of material (fixes invisible objects in W3DViewer)
- Bugfix: do not export uv coordinates if no texture is used by the material
- Bugfix: fixed mesh triangulation on export
- Bugfix: use proper hierarchy name for animation and hlod on export



Head to their GitHub repository to download the latest version. Note that it is not trivial to find the download there. You should try expanding the "Assets". Happy modding!

Updated News Tracker at PPM!

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Hello everyone! I've been working hard on our site's backend these days to provide proper coverage for the new Command & Conquer: Remastered Collection at PPM. And one of the parts of the site that required an upgrade was the News Tracker. That thing you see at the top of our site (not at the forums, to be clear) and you can see the latest 10 news for specific games or community activity in PPM. Well, some things changed there:


- A new game has been added: Command & Conquer: Remastered Collection . We now have the news posted on our front page and some of our tools compatible with the game. We still do not host any forums for any mod for Tiberian Dawn Remastered or Red Alert 1 Remastered, but if anyone is interested to get a public space to discuss your mod, hire people to help you and discuss your upcoming plans, contact us and your project will certainly get attention in the News Tracker as well.

- Other games are now receiving the frontpage news related to them. We are finally using our Hashtag system to organize the News Tracker. For those C&C webmasters who like fetching our feeds, we also have one with all our Command & Conquer franchise-related news. And we have other hidden ones for other games which we will increase coverage in the future (or not, depending on their popularity here).

- The PPM News Tracker has a new category called 2D Art. If fetches artistic images of any kind with a non-limited pallete. So, it doesn't include SHP files. But it may include cameos and textures from other games, such as Generals, Tiberium Wars or even both Remastered C&C games, concept arts, logos, photo-realistic renders, artistic photos, and much more. Submit your 2D Art here and help us to gather resources to help upcoming C&C: Remastered Collection modders.


We have also fixed some internal bugs and added Tiberian Sun: Forgotten Wars into our News Tracker system and in Tiberian Sun's left menu. Enjoy the News Tracker

Usage of C&C Remastered resources on other projects

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Hello everyone! For those wondering about using C&C Remasters assets on OpenRA mods or standalone projects, CCHyper, Tore and pchote (a.k.a. Sleipnir), as members of the Community Council, has been trying to clarify this matter recently with the C&C Remastered Collection development team. Here's what he has to say about it:

CCHyper wrote:
Hey everyone, so there has been people asking about the C&C Remasters assets and using them in their open source standalone mods, as well as other sectors of the community asking questions along those lines (CNCNet, OpenRA etc).

The Community Council for the C&C Remasters have been discussing this topic with EA closely and EA have come up with a statement we can share with the community based on these questions;

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We (The Community Council) have discussed with EA directly the topic of using the C&C Remastered assets in community projects. EA reserves all rights to the C&C Remastered assets, but they do not object to community projects using the assets under the framework of the current Remastered Collection modding policy.

This means that in order to use the assets from the Remastered Collection these requirements must be met;
 - The user must have purchased the C&C Remastered Collection and have it installed through Steam or Origin.
 - The community project must be clear that it is a fanmade project and unaffiliated with EA.
 - The community project can in no way commercialize the usage of the assets.
 - The community project cannot redistribute the Remastered assets.
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I, or any other member of the C&C Remasters Community Council will not be able to answer any more questions on this topic, but we hope this provides everyone with a clear understanding and correct use of the C&C Remasters assets.

- CCHyper


So, I guess that says all. CCHyper has stickied it in Assembly Armada's and, as relevant news, we are replicating it to the rest of the internet. For those who want an OpenRA using Remastered assets, you need to own the game and OpenRA would need to extract them straight from your C&C: Remastered Collection Steam or Origin installation. And that's it.

Open Hard Vacuum has been released!

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Matthias M. has recently released OpenHV, which is a game that uses OpenRA Engine and it is inspired on an old game called Hard Vacuum, which ended up not being released at all, except for its art graphics.

It is hard to say how much OpenHV differs from the original design ideas for Hard Vacuum since the original game was not released nor documented properly. However, OpenHV is playable and includes multiplayer and proper AI bots. Here's a screenshot:





Quote:
OpenHV

An Open Source 90s Science-Fiction Real-Time Strategy game with Multiplayer (LAN and internet) support, competent skirmish AI as well as an integrated map editor.  All the assets are licensed under Open Source compliant terms. It is very easy to mod.


History

In 1993 a game called Hard Vacuum was in development. Heavily inspired by Dune 2, the father of the modern RTS, it had ambitious goals, but it was never released to the public. Decades later the pixel art was released under a free license. The starting point for this project.

If you like classic Westwood Studios style real-time strategy games be sure to check out OpenRA upon which this game is built.


Anyway, visit is official site to download it.

OpenRA will support C&C Remastered assets soon!

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The upcoming releases of OpenRA will support the C&C Remastered Collection in upcoming releases. However, it is not clear when exactly it will happen. For now, what has been revealed is that developments in this direction has reached advanced stages, as you can see in the demonstration below:





Also, as posted on the latest news at the official OpenRA site:

Quote:
A popular question has been whether OpenRA will support the remastered game assets, and I can now confirm (see this GitHub comment for details) that we will work towards this goal. This will take time, as there are a number of technical challenges that must first be solved. We will provide more information on these plans in future posts, or you can follow progress directly on GitHub.


Note that it is not a simple operation. There are several file formats to cover and possibly some other constraints. In terms of file formats, the BINK format for the video might be the most problematic obstacle.

The use of the Remastered assets on both Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert mods of OpenRA will require an active installation of C&C Remastered Collection in your machine.

Tiberian Sun: Forgotten Wars updates!

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Tiberian Sun - Forgotten Wars, a modification from Askhati for Tiberian Sun that tweaks the gameplay and adds Forgotten and CABAL as a faction, has received a myriad of updates during these months, although there is no known release yet.

Anyway, here are some of the units that were announced for it recently:

GDI

1 - Stalwart Gunboat (https://ppmforums.com/topic-52955/naval-medium-attack-stalwart-gunboat/)

2 - Skylance Barge (slow barge armed with dual long-range SAM launchers for fleet air defence)

3 - Envoy Cruiser (fast but fragile; dual AP cannons at mid-long range)

4 - Hyperion Cruiser (slow and sturdy; med-range railgun)

5 - Hover Transport (https://ppmforums.com/topic-53794/naval-transport-hover-transport/)





Forgotten

- Forgotten Patrol Boat: Refitted from various civilian and now-defunct Coast Guard vessels, these simple patrol boats allow the Forgotten to explore waterways and offer basic protection to their naval installations. Neither fast nor well-armed, their only strength is their heavy hull plating that allows them to soak up a bit of punishment.

- Forgotten Barrage Cruiser: Mothballed at the end of the First Tiberium War, these old cruisers were considered obsolete once railguns and high-precision missiles started taking over as the primary naval armaments of the 21st century. Pressed into service now at the hands of Forgotten crews, these Barrage Cruisers can unleash a volley of high-explosive shells at any ground target, albeit with only limited accuracy. They are also armed with potent flak guns that allow them to fire at aerial targets, doing area damage to anything in the same air-space.







CABAL

- Hunter-Striker: roughly equivalent to the Orca Fighter, the HS carries napalm missiles for creating firestorms on the ground. Strong versus infantry, structures.

- Hunter-Killer: slower but more heavily armored, the HK carries dual lasers with unlimited ammo. Best used in swarms to harass enemy vehicles and buildings.

- Skyhook: Carryall equivalent (need to declutter the model at some point though, the original design did not translate that well into the game).

- CABAL Skynet Transport: Acting as a middle ground between GDI's Orca Transport and the sub-orbital Dropship, the Skynet Transport acts as the primary aerial troop carrier for the CABAL legions. Capable of carrying 10x infantry units, it allows the CABAL sub-commanders to rapidly cross intervening terrain and deploy troops directly to hotspots on the battlefield. Their slow speed and fragile construction is somewhat offset by their high cruising altitude, making it more difficult for AA fire to reach them; however, they can take only a handful of hits before they go down.

- Hunter-Killer Aerostat: slow, high-altitude observation drone that can be sent to explored covered areas of the map. Very fragile, can be downed by two SAM hits.

- Moto-Hunter: Building onto the success of the Nod Attack Cycle, CABAL has devised a similar drone for its own forces: the Moto-Hunter. Consisting of a cyborg body permanently built onto an Attack Cycle frame, the Moto-Hunter relies on speed to avoid damage, much like its Nod counterpart. Where the Moto-Hunter differs, is in its primary armament: instead of dual AP rockets, it carries two small cannons firing incendiary ammunition capable of creating a firestorm on the ground. This makes them lethal against infantry and buildings alike - as long as nothing shoots back at them, of course...

- Aero Turret: Exchanging range for rate of fire, the Aero Turret is CABAL's answer to the air defense question. Consisting of a cluster of 20mm cannons and a sophisticated anti-air tracking unit, the Aero Turret will give a 99% guaranteed hit rate, every shot, for anything that enters its defensive arc. Their only drawback is their range: they only have approximately 80% of the range of comparable GDI and Nod SAM launchers. CABAL sub-commanders are advised to stagger them in overlapping arcs to double up on the amount of firepower they can concentrate on a single unit; GDI commanders, on the other hand, are advised to use the high speed of their Orca assets to get past these turrets as quickly as possible in a "strike past the target" tactic.

- CABAL Drone Corvette: Built around a robotic long-haul marine hull, the Drone Corvette is CABAL's primary fleet vessel. Armed with a advanced missile pack capable of hitting both ground and air targets, the Drone Corvette is not as sturdy or as heavily armed as its GDI or Nod equivalent, but comes in with a lesser price tag and a higher speed as tradeoff.












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And after all these reinforcements, what I can say is that... Kane will not be pleased at all, because Nod's most recent reinforcement was a Cossack APC.






And for more information about this mod, follow it by visiting its forums and sharing your feedback there.

As a bonus, Askhati has shared some of the civilian resources that will be used on the maps of this mod, such as the civilian yatch and freighter.

Final Alert 2 Patch from E1 Elite has been updated!

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E1 Elite has recently posted two new versions of his Final Alert 2 YR v1.02 Patches, which updates FAData.ini to support features from Ares, among other things. Here's the full changelog from the versions released in this month:

Quote:
Changes (2020-09-05):
- Script action Change house (20,n) dropdown changed to country list for index selection.
- Few description changes in FAData.ini for actions and events.


Changes (2020-09-02):
- Ease of use UI changes like dropdown size increase, consecutive window's button location sync.
- Included Ambient calc tool for map action 71 and 72.
- Map action 88 now shows ParticleSystems list in the dropdown instead of Particles.
- FAData.ini changes
-- Desert trees with lower IDs made available
-- Few trees, lamps and other objects made available
-- Parameter type corrections and changes
-- Additional info and corrections for few events
-- Corrections/changes for actions 8, 25, 26, 27, 40, 42, 43, 44, 45, 48, 52, 58,
71, 72, 73, 88, 89, 90, 94, 96, 104, 105, 112, 114, 116, 128, 137 and 140.
-- Ares events 62 to 88 added
-- Ares actions 146 to 149 added

Note: When applying mods like TX (Terrain Expansion) which changes FAData.ini, it is advised to merge the contents with a diff tool instead of overwriting the file so that the corrections or changes are not lost.



Head to this topic to boost the power of your Final Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge.

Dawn of the Tiberium Age 1.192f is available!

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The crew from the Dawn of the Tiberium Age have been patching their mod during these recent months. Most of the changes are bug fixes, but new things are added occasionally, such as the Mechanic for the Allies or interior wall corners. It also includes smarter harvesters, as shown in the video below (which is a feature that will also be included on Twisted Insurrection):





Here's the recent changelog:


Quote:
Version 1.192f:
Released: Aug 22, 2020

   Changed: The (Allied) AI now also builds the Enforcer (Credits: Rampastring).
   Fixed: Removed overlapping structures from the "Dark Prospects" multiplayer map to prevent a crash Tiberius).
   Fixed: A bug in the client could cause players to disconnect from CnCNet when there were a lot of overall CnCNet players online (Credits: Rampastring).


Version 1.192c:
Released: Aug 09, 2020

   Added: 2 interior wall corners (Credits: Bittah Commander).
   Changed: The Mobile Repair Vehicle now repairs 56% more hit points at a time.
   Changed: The Mechanic now repairs 33% fewer hit points at a time.
   Changed: The Commando and Tanya no longer gain a speed boost after being promoted to veteran.
   Changed: The Anti-Air Truck now has 18% more range against aircraft.
   Changed: Harvesters now behave much smarter (Credits: Rampastring).
   Changed: The Chrono Tank can now hit aircraft.
   Changed: The Chrono Tank now does 15% less damage against buildings.
   Changed: The Enforcer's Machine Gun damage against vehicles and tanks has been increased by 15%.
   Fixed: The Mechanic had far fewer hit points than intended.
   Fixed: After building a Service Depot an unbuildable Mechanic would show up on the sidebar for the Soviets.
   Fixed: Removed overlapping structures from the "Mining Town" multiplayer map to prevent a crash (Credits: Bittah Commander, Tiberius).


Version 1.191k:
Released: Jul 22, 2020

   Added: The Mechanic for Allies (Credits: Bittah Commander, Rampastring).
   Changed: The Tank Destroyer's damage has been increased by 17%
   Changed: The Disc Launcher's rate of fire is now about half as fast, its damage has been reduced by 8% and it can no longer gain extra range by force-firing in front of a target.
   Changed: The V2 Rocket Launcher now does 5% more damage against tanks and Gun Turrets.
   Changed: The SSM Launcher now does 10% more damage against tanks and Gun Turrets.
   Changed: The Chrono Tank can now move earlier after teleporting in.
   Changed: The Flame Tank now has 5% more hit points.
   Fixed: A few issues with the "A Bridge Too Few" mission were resolved (Credits: Bittah Commander).



If you already have the mod, use its auto-updater to grab the latest version. And if you don't have it, download it at ModDB. Have fun!

Twisted Insurrection, upcoming Nod improvements.

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Hello everyone! The crew from Twisted Insurrection modification for Tiberian Sun has posted some improvements on some of the voxels used in the Brotherhood of Nod faction, on their discord channel.

Let's start with the Nod Eclipse Tank, that has received a makeover by martx and it was improved with more "muscles":





And here's the updated Nod "Instigator" Light Tank:




And there are also improvements with the air units. Here's the new Wraith, redesigned by martx:





And now, the elite of the Brotherhood. The best unit ever, top tier, the strongest and the one you can trust your life to wipe every single base. I'm humbly talking about the Banshee, of course, with a design from Explosive Reactive Amore:






It's still unknown when will you see these units in action, but I'm sure that, unlike Tiberian Sun - Forgotten Wars update posted recently, Kane will be very proud of the Brotherhood forces, specially with a great Banshee to back it up. Find out more about Twisted Insurrection at its forums.

The latest version of Twisted Insurrection can be downloaded at ModDB and patched with its own auto-update. The latest patch is 0.8.0.7. It fixes some renderer settings and it has an updated client.

New Tiberian Sun engine hacks are now available!

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We have some interesting resources on our Tiberian Sun Research Center (registered users only) that was recently posted by Rampastring. Thanks to the source code from Red Alert, Rampastring was able to tweak areas of Tiberian Sun that had identical code (or almost identical). And, with that knowledge, he has posted some interesting patches to improve the TS engine. Here's his words on it:

Quote:
With the release of the RA source code, I've studied the TS code more as well and noticed that a lot of the game logic code is identical between TS and RA. This has made it a lot easier to write hacks for the TS engine, as when researching something I can take a look at the equivalent logic in RA and figure out how it works from the documented C++ source code and then match the code to x86 ASM instead of having to figure out the ASM from the ground up. That is when an equivalent logic exists in RA; if a logic does not exist (like particles), then the RA source is of no help.

So far I've written the following notable bugfixes and enhancements in the past few months:


   Smarter harvester AI (demonstration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G_IQiQ346Q )
   Smarter AI fire-sale
   Sidebar cameo sorting
   Mechanics (like in RA1)
   Fixing AI unit scatter when the AI produces vehicles from a factory that has WeaponsFactory=no
   Oil Derricks (like in RA2)
   Vehicle transports (like in RA1)



You are free to use these enhancements in any projects. Although if you do, it's appreciated if you credit myself and Dawn of the Tiberium Age. To make use of these with your mod, you have to compile the spawner with these source files included in the Makefile.

Also, big thanks to CCHyper for providing me information that has helped with many of these hacks.

More are likely coming.


The smarter AI video was posted on the DTA news below, but we can repeat it here:







If you are interested, register on our forums. You won't get spammed ro anything, so don't worry. Once you are logged in, visit this topic to view all the recent asm codes.

In order to use them, you need to clone and compile the CnCNet TS-patches project.

C&C Remastered Collection: Last patch and map editor GPL3!

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Jim Vessella, also known as Jimtern, the producer of the Command & Conquer: Remastered Collection, has posted an announcement about the last official patch for the game.

I know how some of you will feel about it: the last patch already? The game was released in June and, 3 months later, post-game support is already terminated! But... don't worry, maybe in 20 or 25 years whoever owns the right of the Command & Conquer franchise will patch the game again... I mean, the new remaster/remake/whatever that we will have to pay additional money for it, of course, and maybe get 256k screen resolution with 240fps and possibly other features like that which we won't be able to think about in our current time-space continuum.

However, we need to take our hats off for EA for the sustainability of the long term community post-support process that they have worked on. If you take into account how C&C95 was supported during all this time to the resources given for community support on C&C: Remastered Collection, the evolution was amazing. The old game had to be hacked with assembly, hex editing tools, which is a very unintuitive way to do things. Now, we have the source code from the game and the map editor! Yea, you have heard it right, they have released the source code from the Remastered TDRA map editor! The latest patches also added LAN support, which is the best way they could do to allow mods to be played online. Although the Glyph Engine is still hard-coded, the DLLs and the Map Editor gives great freedom and great documentation for those who wanna keep the games alive.

Whenever an official patch is released, mods based on the old patches get obsolete. Considering that many modders move into other things during their lives, new official patches render several mods obsolete in its lifetime, like what the latest August 12th patch (which we did not mention in our news, sorry!) did.  So, the end of the official updates might have its advantages as well, although some people are still not a fan of path-finding and the AI of both games.

Here are the words on Jim Vessella about the last upcoming patch:


Jimtern wrote:
Fellow Command & Conquer fans,

It’s been a little over three months since we launched the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection and we continue to be humbled by the response from players around the world. It’s been wonderful to see Command & Conquer back in the mainstream conversation, and the growing community even more engaged in the long-term success of the franchise.

Over the past three months our full-time focus has been on supporting the Remastered Collection. We’ve done our best to listen to the community, and deliver upon some of the top requested items in a transparent and collaborative manner. Next week we aim to launch another Major Update for the C&C Remastered Collection. The focus of this update is also on community requests, including a Beacon system to ping your allies and displaying key information on the Multiplayer loading screen, amongst a handful of quality of life improvements and bug fixes. We’ll also aim to reset the leaderboards and incorporate some Matchmaking Rating and timing adjustments to address community feedback.

With this patch, we finally feel the C&C Remastered Collection will have achieved the vision we had for the game when we first started development. As such, in our spirit of transparency, we wanted to let the community know we anticipate this will be the last patch for the game.

To prepare for this transition, our goal throughout development was to create an ecosystem where the community would have the resources to take the Remastered Collection even further. Within this goal we released the DLLs and source code under the GPL v3.0, embraced community content with the Steam Workshop, and incorporated LAN Play with modding support. Today we want to add one more ingredient to that mix, which is the release of the Map Editor under the GPL v3.0 as well. The Map Editor source code is available now on Github at the link below, and will be included in the root game folder once the upcoming patch goes live. With these assets available to the community, we hope the Remastered Collection and other community projects will continue to thrive for years to come.

https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Remastered_Collection

We’re then soon approaching a special date in franchise history, with September 26th marking the official 25th Anniversary of Tiberian Dawn. We’ve of course been highlighting this anniversary throughout the project, but hope you will all come together for a special week to celebrate this franchise which we all love.

Thanks so much for your ongoing support and looking forward to the rest of September.

Cheers,

Jim Vessella

Jimtern

This announcement and roadmap may change as we listen to community feedback and continue developing and evolving our Live Service & Content. We will always strive to keep our community as informed as possible.

C&C Remastered Collection: Final patch has been released!

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The last official patch for C&C: Remastered Collection has been released today. It includes many interesting features for the game, such as 6 player support for Tiberian Dawn, loading screen with more details, a beacon system for multiplayer, local replay support, countless bug fixes and the ability for modders to override cncrules.xml, create customizable hotkeys, etc. The patch notes that we are replicating here was originally posted on reddit.


Jim Vessella wrote:
Fellow Command & Conquer fans,

Today we’ll be launching our third major update for the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection. As I described in my post last week here, we feel this patch will have achieved the vision we had for the game when we first started development. As such, we wanted to let the community know we anticipate this will be the last patch for the game. The goal for this patch was to deliver some final touches we had originally envisioned for the player experience, and further position the game for the community to have the resources available to make enhancements in the long-term.

Below you will find the key improvements in this update along with the detailed full list of Patch Notes.

Loading Screen Details:

As requested by the community since launch, this update includes key information now displayed on the loading screen for Multiplayer and Skirmish games. The loading screen will display the Minimap, your starting location, and the players in the match. We hope this improvement helps orient players when they start a match, plan their opening strategy, and get a sense of who they’re facing off against in Quickmatch games.

Beacon System:

We’ve added a Beacon system so teammates can ping each other during the course of a match. Players can place a Beacon by tapping the new button above the minimap or using the associated hotkey. Each player can have one Beacon placed at a time, and the latest placed Beacon will last 30 seconds.

6 Player Support for Tiberian Dawn:

We’ve officially added 6 player support for Tiberian Dawn Skirmishes and Multiplayer. Maps which previously supported greater than 4 starting locations are eligible for the new player count, which should carry over into User Maps as well. Some of our community members have also expressed an eagerness of trying to mod larger map sizes and up to 8 player games with the new code built into this patch.

Local Replay Support:

A new tab has been added to the Replays / Observer menu for “Local Replays”. This will display all the replays you have present in your local replays folder and allow you to play the replays while offline. This should provide a viable flow for players to host / share replays within the community and view them long into the future.

Map Editor under GPL:

As you may have seen last week, the Map Editor has now been released under the GPL version 3.0 license. In addition to being available on Github, this patch provides the code in the local install folder alongside the TiberianDawn.dll and RedAlert.dll files.

Ladder Reset and Matchmaking:

Once we have confirmed the stability of the patch release, we will be resetting the ladder in both games. This time around, we will also be resetting each player’s Matchmaking Rating, which should effectively set everyone back to pre-launch status. We are also rolling back the Matchmaking search range and timings to the June launch settings. We hope these changes provide for a better Quickmatch experience in Season 3. Again, this reset will likely happen in the next few days.

Mod Compatibility:

I’ll then reiterate this message from our previous Patch Notes. Because this patch includes updates to the TiberianDawn.dll and RedAlert.dll files, it’s likely that some previous mods will no longer be compatible with this updated version of the game. Modders will need to update their mods with the latest code and refresh their mods on the Steam Workshop.

Once a mod has been updated on the Steam Workshop, players will need to follow a few steps to update and reactivate their mods:

Disable the mod in the Mods Menu

Unsubscribe from the mod in the in-game Workshop Mods menu

Quit and restart the game

Re-subscribe to the mod via the Workshop Mods menu

Activate the mod and restart the game as prompted

The updated mod should then work as intended

Players may experience some issues if they try to activate mods which are not updated to the patch version.

Detailed Patch Notes:

With those items in mind, please see below for all the updates made in this patch:

New Features:

Added Loading Screen details. Key information has been added to the Loading Screen for Skirmish and Multiplayer matches. The loading screen will display the Minimap, your starting location, and the players in the match. We hope this improvement helps orient players when they start a match, plan their opening strategy, and get a sense of who they’re facing off against in Quickmatch games.

Added 6 player support in Tiberian Dawn for maps with greater than 4 spawn points. This should apply to both Official and User Maps.

Added a Beacon System for players to ping teammates during Multiplayer. Players can place a Beacon by tapping the new button above the minimap or using the associated hotkey. Each player can have one Beacon placed at a time, and the latest placed Beacon will last 30 seconds.

Added Local Replay support. A new tab in the Replays / Observer menu will display all the replays you have present in your local replays folder and allow you to play the replays while offline. This should provide a viable flow for players to host / share replays within the community and view them long into the future.

Map Editor released under GPL. The Map Editor has now been released under the GPL version 3.0 license. In addition to being available on Github, this patch provides the code in the local install folder alongside the TiberianDawn.dll and RedAlert.dll files.

Quality of Life Improvements:

Increased the viable range of the Map View Scroll Speed. The first several ticks now represent the previous settings, with the ability to scroll 3x faster at the new max speed.

Engineers should no longer be able to capture buildings during their sell animation

Reduced the brightness of the Nuke explosion and added a ramp up / ramp down

Made it so hitting the [ESC] key will now close dialog boxes in the Map Editor

Added the ability to have Intro, Win, and Lose videos in User Maps for Tiberian Dawn

Replays should now pause when hitting the [ESC] key

Added the ability to override the CNCRULES.XML file

Added the ability to force the Remastered graphics mode for mod flexibility

Added the ability for Mods to create customizable hotkeys

Adjusted the second player default team color in Quickmatch Red Alert to Light Blue for better text legibility

Updated several German translations based on feedback from the community members at United-Forum.de

Bug Fixes:

Fixed an issue where the Mobile Gap Generator was permanently replacing shroud

Fixed an issue where the game was forgetting your previous Skirmish settings upon returning to the Skirmish menu

Fixed an issue on Tournament Ore Rift where players could capture the Church building with Engineers

Fixed an issue where User Maps were not being downloaded if attempted multiple times

Fixed an issue where not all the units were being selected with the “Select All Units” hotkey

Fixed an issue where the Orca would sometimes switch to a single-shot instead of a burst

Fixed an issue on the Load Game menu where the mission names were incorrectly shown in localized languages

Fixed a crash on the “Blackout” missions

Fixed an issue on Nod Mission 13 where the Airstrike would only occur once

Fixed a crash when quitting a replay session

Fixed an issue where the Player Requires Map text was misaligned

Fixed an issue where the mouse click SFX was heard twice in the Mods menu

Fixed an issue where spawn points of a previously selected map were appearing on User Maps in the lobby screen

Fixed an issue where players would receive a “Syncing Map Failed” dialog when joining a game with a User Map

Fixed an issue where a User Map title was not being displayed in the Observer menu

Fixed an issue where Ore was regrowing even when the Ore Regrowth slider was set to zero

Fixed an issue where a guest player was unable to join a LAN game which was switching between official and User Maps

Fixed a crash when player certain User Maps online

Fixed an issue where the Stealth Tank would display a selection box around the unit in legacy graphics mode

Fixed an issue where selling a building right as its destroyed will generate both units from the selling and destruction action

Fixed an issue where the “PlayerControl” ini key was getting removed in the Map Editor

Fixed an issue where vehicles being built after a Tesla Coil were occasionally taking less damage

Fixed an issue where the building deployment area was not updating properly in legacy graphics

Fixed an issue where the Tiberium / Ore regrowth was shown incorrectly for Quickmatch games in the Replay / Observer menu

Fixed an issue where the Obelisk of Light laser would get stuck on the screen

Fixed an issue in the Map Editor where player owned pre-placed buildings were getting incorrectly assigned to the AI

Fixed an issue where a black screen was observed when deleting a saved game

Fixed an issue where the Sellable and Rebuild options were missing in the Map Editor

Fixed an issue where certain mods were not getting updated in the mods list after subscribing

Fixed an issue where “Base under attack” was heard when some neutral buildings were attacked

Fixed an issue where the Credits tooltip was not displaying for certain modded units or structures

Fixed an issue in the Map Editor when dragging objects out of the available map space

Fixed an issue in the Map Editor where waypoints Flare and Home were shown incorrectly

Fixed an issue when searching for a Replay with a space in the player’s name

Fixed a crash when sometimes clicking on the Launch button in Observer mode

Fixed an issue where there explosion sound effect was not playing for Advanced Guard Tower and Mammoth Tank rockets

Fixed a crash where sometimes the server would receive an out of memory error

Fixed an issue where enemy AI units would sometimes wander to the top left corner of the map

Quickmatch:

Alongside the Ladder reset, we are then making the following Map Pool adjustments based on community feedback:

Tiberian Dawn

Removing “One Pass Fits All” from the pool

We hope this update improves your experience with the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection. Thanks for your ongoing support over the course of the project, and we look forward to seeing what the community continues to create in the months and years ahead.

Cheers,

Jim Vessella

Jimtern

This announcement and roadmap may change as we listen to community feedback and continue developing and evolving our Live Service & Content. We will always strive to keep our community as informed as possible.



Remember to merge the code of your mods with the latest code at EA's C&C GIT repository in order to make your mod compatible useful again once the user updates the game with this patch.

Command & Conquer Official Modding Guidelines

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Hello everyone! First of all, congratulations to the Command & Conquer franchise for its 25th anniversary. I think that my first experience with a Command & Conquer game happened around 1997 or 1998... and it was with Red Alert 1. At that time, I didn't enjoy it at all. My English skills were far more limited than today and I had no clue regarding what was going on with the story of the campaign. I've started to become a Command & Conquer fan about 1 year later with C&C 95. My first internet access came later than that. So, I'm one of those people who never had a clue when Command & Conquer started and I am trusting Jim Vessella on this anniversary date (September 26th).

The same Jim Vessella has posted that, as a celebration of this memorable 25th anniversary of the franchise, they have released a Modding Guidelines that explains how they authorize (or not) the usage of assets from any Command & Conquer game in mods/games, as long as they follow their guidelines.

I won't post Jim's message on reddit, I will just skip it to the modding guidelines itself:


Quote:
Command & Conquer™ Franchise Modding Guidelines

EA appreciates the passion that our players and community members have for our games. In particular, we celebrate the Command & Conquer community Mods that have helped fans engage in our C&C games for decades. Members of the C&C community have asked us what community Mods they can create and distribute. This Policy applies to all modifications, alterations, or extensions of the C&C video games and universe, including add-ons, modified UI and new levels, maps and updates. EA does not object to your use of the C&C video games, including the C&C Remastered Collection, in your community Mods, provided you comply with the following guidelines.

Not for commercial profit: Community Mods are just that, Mods focused on coming together over a shared passion, not a money-making venture. Your Mods must be non-commercial and distributed free-of-charge at this time. Therefore, Mods cannot be sold, licensed, rented for a fee, nor can the Mod contain features that would support monetary transactions of any type. Mods may not be used to advertise any goods or services.

In addition, your Mods must not be used to solicit donations, except as follows: EA recognizes that the time and resources needed to create Mods can sometimes be substantial. Accordingly, Mod developers are allowed to fund their development costs through donations, subject to the following restrictions:

- Requests for donations must be limited to the Mod website or distribution site and not appear within the Mod gameplay itself.

- Donors may not be provided with any in-game special advantages, such as private access to a Mod, special levels, graphical markers, special text, abilities, units, maps, etc. That is, all users must be able to play the same Mods without having to pay extra to do so.

- Donors that are corporations, limited liability companies, partnerships, etc., cannot be listed in the credits section of a Mod; only individuals may be listed.

Respect the rights of others: Your Mods must not infringe any copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret or other intellectual property right of any third party and will not include content that is unlawful, tortious, defamatory, obscene, invasive of the privacy of another person, threatening, harassing, abusive, hateful, racist or otherwise objectionable or inappropriate. EA requires that Mods not include any material that would not be allowed under the age ratings for any applicable C&C game(s). The C&C franchise usually has an age rating of ESRB T (Teen) and PEGI 16+, and similar ratings from other ratings boards around the world.

No EA affiliation: You must include the following statement prominently at the top of your website and in at least one root-level license file in any source-code repositories for your project (e.g., a README file or equivalent): “EA has not endorsed and does not support this product.” Do not promote your Mod in a way that suggests that it’s endorsed or approved by or affiliated with EA in any manner. Do not use EA artwork, logos or trademarks (including game logo treatments, the names Electronic Arts, EA or “Command & Conquer” or the logos or names) to promote your Mod. However, you may state that your Mod is for Command & Conquer and/or for a specific C&C game or expansion pack in the franchise (e.g., “Command & Conquer,” “Tiberian Dawn,” “Red Alert,” “Renegade,” “Generals,” and/or “Kane’s Wrath,” as applicable).

Safety & integrity/b]. Your Mods must not jeopardize the integrity of the gameplay or harm the experience of others and must not interfere with or disrupt any of EA’s services, servers or networks, such as by introducing malware or by circumventing any of EA’s content protection measures for its services. To maintain the integrity of C&C and ensure the best possible gaming experience for our players, EA reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to revoke permission to use, distribute or make Mods at any time, to disable any Mod within C&C and to take disciplinary action against players who take part in any of these activities.

[b]Intellectual property ownership
; license from EA: C&C assets, including game code, art, music, and all other content, are and shall remain the sole and exclusive property of EA (the “C&C Assets”). To the extent any C&C Assets are used in Mods, EA grants the Mod creator a revocable, limited, non-exclusive, non-commercial license to use the C&C Assets solely in connection with, and as a part of, the Mod and subject to the terms of this Policy. Your Mod must not include any music files from any C&C games. EA reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to revoke this license at any time.

Abide by all other EA rules: These guidelines supplement and don’t supersede any other EA rules that apply to your Mod, including the GPL license terms and conditions under which we have distributed our C&C Remastered Collection DLL source code and the EA User Agreement, which are specifically incorporated into this Policy. In the event that the terms of this Policy are in conflict with the terms of these other EA rules, the terms of this Policy will supersede and govern. For clarity, Mods constitute “UGC” as that term is defined in our EA User Agreement.

Please remember that EA does not pre-screen, endorse, or specifically support any C&C Mod. Please use Mods with caution and understand there may be a risk.

Thank you for your interest and we hope you continue to enjoy our games. Any requests or questions regarding these guidelines and the topics they cover may be submitted to PermissionRequests@ea.com.



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The whole idea of these Guidelines is to clarify how EA legally handles user-created content created with C&C assets. The implied message here is that they want you to create mods, but they don't want to have legal problems with them, they don't want users being forced to pay to play mods on their best experience, and EA does not want to have any sort of association with any mod. Regarding their sudden aggressive instance with the distribution of music, EA was once sued by a singer of a song featured in Tiberian Dawn because a community member has made a fan patch for the game that enabled it in the Jukebox. Fortunately, the singer has lost the process. I don't think Frank Klepacki would do what this singer did, taking into account his history, his own passion for the C&C franchise, and his own contribution to the C&C community mods. It is not clear, however, if this event is their sole motivation for this sudden change of attitude regarding music distribution.

Take these Modding Guidelines with the same consideration that you have with the end-user license agreement from these games when you mod them. Focus on the points from the previous paragraph and always credit EA for their assets, even if you (and someone else) modify them. This is our informal advice, really. It is impossible to have legal terms that validate mods in the way we do here (and anywhere in the world). There will always be grey areas in these cases and situations where some terms might eventually be violated. Derivative works are something that always falls into grey areas. Who has ownership of what? What are the minimum requirements to consider some work as a derivative work of something and not simply a copy? The impossibility of writing legal terms that takes into consideration all modding activities seen in the internet is a problem without a solution, due to maths restriction which I will not go into details here. That's why being orthodox and radical about manners is dangerous. Another fact that must be taken into consideration when Guidelines like this one are created is that most mods will not be updated to follow these Guidelines because their authors are gone for good. For these reasons and the lack of human resources to be proactive, PPM will have a reactive instance on this matter. If EA lawyers consider one or more mods hosted here to be problematic or harmful for the company, please, contact us and we will take their downloads down as soon as possible.

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If you take the whole text by the book, letter by letter, we will have to place most of our mods offline, because they will certainly violate some random term.

- The use of some game extensions may interfere or disrupt with EA content protection measures. Some people may interpret that standalone mods could do the same thing. Although the games they were released on were eventually turned into Freeware, they are still sold on Origin.

- Some mods distribute or modify music from other C&C games. Stripping down this ability from them might ruin their experience. And developing utilities to extract these assets not necessarily is something that is done in a night since modders are not necessarily good programmers nor have necessarily have music creation skills to recreate alternative interpretations of these songs.

- A myriad of mods has no message explicitly mentioning that they are not affiliated with EA and they won't have it because their authors disappeared... some of them are no longer among the living people.

- Many mods use EA artwork for their logos and Command & Conquer on their names.

- Intellectual property restrictions are something that we apply when whoever owns the assets has explicit politics to legally hunt those who use them illegally, but it is very hard for us to track these things. We have even seen C&C games created by Chinese companies and officially endorsed by EA to use intellectual property from third-party companies, like Blizzard, without their consent and monetizing it.

- Words like "Your Mods must not jeopardize the integrity of the gameplay" are probably focusing on the creation of mods with cheating purposes. But would badly balanced mods be interpreted as mods that jeopardize the integrity of the gameplay? And even if someone makes mods for cheating purposes (which I have seen a bunch done for the Remastered Collection already), what would the problem of distributing it for offline usage only? Or even for multiplayer, as long as all players involved have access to it and are aware of its contents? Personally, I don't download this kind of thing, but I have no prejudice against those who do it.

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And I could go on and on and on about the problems that we could have with these terms, but I will go straight to the point: Modding is all about having fun and provide a fun experience to the community. And regardless of any awkward term in these Guidelines, we should keep this spirit.

Happy birthday to PPM! 20 years old!

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Hello everyone! Today, September 30th is a special day for PPM: It's our 20th anniversary! It's just a few days after the 25th anniversary from Command & Conquer.

And, usually, birthday means gift here, right? However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and my Ph.D. dissertation, we will be a bit late with it. In the upcoming days, we will come up with good surprises. For now, we will request some patience from you and we will provide the famous delicious cake.






The credits for today's cake goes to this site

C&C Reloaded 1.7.1 has been released!

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GDI and Nod from Tiberian Sun together with Allies, Soviets, and Yuri from Red Alert 2 got mixed into the same battlefield with the recent release of C&C Reloaded 1.7.1 total conversion for Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge. Versions 1.7.0 and 1.7.1 includes a lot of interesting new features, such as:

- An alternative tech tree for GDI inspired by the vehicles from Tiberium Wars


- A new Ion Cannon for GDI in multiplayer


- Fire propagation and explosions in trees have been re-enabled.


- Remake of the first mission of the Red Alert 1 campaign "It Came From Red Alert" with Red Alert 2 graphics. Here are some of the creatures you may face in this mission:


- An special edition of the MapTool from Starkku with 49 profiles compatible with C&C: Reloaded to allow easier conversions of Tiberian Sun maps into C&C: Reloaded.


- Allied artillery and the Nod experimental stealth harvester got new graphics.

- Added new Skirmish/Online Game option: "Disable Alternative Tech Trees". If set, it disables alternative tech trees, leaving available only the original tech tree of each faction.

- Added 49 new multiplayer maps

- More AI improvements.


Check it out and download it by visiting C&C Reloaded Website.

Tiberium Resurrection 4.0 has been released!

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LucasSK has recently announced that Tiberium Resurrection 4.0 has been released. As usual, it tweaks GDI, Nod factions, adds Mutants/Civilians and also brings a myriad of tracks, maps and much more into the battlefield.




Here's the changelog:

Quote:
Client:
- updated TR credits
- updated preset skirmish settings

General:
- player no longer named "LucasSK" upon installation Very Happy
- merged "the Prologue" addon with the main game (follow instructions in "New Campaign" menu to play it - props to Bittah!)
- fixed invisible Armories bug
- fixed Infinite Tiberium option turning red tiberium to blue
- nerfed the AI (since difficulty "medium" and above was nearly unbeatable)
- buildings now lose health much faster when on low power

Sountrack:
- added Among the Titans and Legacy of Nod
- removed Trib in the Tib

Maps:
- Prologue 1.1 - enhanced version of the Prologue for even better experience
- added 2 skirmish maps - Ravine and Desert-ed
- remastered Limited Access
- updated already existing skirmish maps
- fixed City Rally glitches
- fixed Tiers of Sorrow forced Ion Storm
- removed Fields of Insurgency

Game:
GDI:
- added Watchman and Atlas Harvester
- added new voice lines for APC
- updated Disruptor and APC textures
- updated Power Plant (needs only 1 upgrade instead of two to produce maximum power)
- tweaked Orca Fighter fire sound
- tweaked Hover MLRS
- tweaked Juggernaut
- tweaked JumpJet
- tweaked Vulcan Tower and its fire sound
- buffed Titan
- buffed Tech Center
- buffed Refinery
- buffed War Factory
- buffed Construction Yard
- nerfed Wolverine
- nerfed Disc Thrower
- nerfed EMPulse
- nerfed Disruptor
- nerfed Orca Bomber
- nerfed Ghost Stalker

Nod:
- added Stealth Harvester, Scarab Tank and Ravager
- added new voice lines for Stealth Tank
- updated Buggy and Devil's Tongue textures
- fixed Buggy turret offset
- fixed Reaper firing position
- tweaked Devil's Tongue
- tweaked Buggy and its fire sound
- buffed subterrannean vehicles underground speed
- buffed Refinery
- buffed War Factory
- buffed Temple of Nod
- buffed Construction Yard
- buffed Laser fence Post
- nerfed EMPulse
- removed Tick Tank (for now)

Civilian/Mutants:
- added 4 civilian vehicles - Tanker, Mass Hauler, Flatbed and Lorry
- updated Scavenged Tank textures
- buffed Mutant Sniper
- buffed Mutant
- nerfed Tiberian Fiend

Other:
- added 5 destroyable rocks
- added 1 infested city building
- added a Snowman Smile
- re-balanced Crates (again)
- nerfed Red Tiberium value



Download the version 4.0 at their ModDB profile, where you can also find more information about that mod, although you can also provide your feedback for them at the PPM forums. Have fun!

Mental Omega 3.3.5 is out now!

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All missions revamped, their difficulty overhauled - now is the best time to play the Mental Omega campaign, if you haven't already: on Casual, Normal, or Mental, if you dare. This, and much more is now available for download in patch 3.3.5.


Hell has frozen over! After two years the new version of of Mental Omega has finally been released. While 3 out of the 8 final missions are still in the works, the big everything else has already been finished, and thus, after deciding to split this release - version 3.3.5 with its major campaign overhaul is now out!


Mental Omega Patch 3.3.5 (Manual Update)


All of our singleplayer and multiplayer missions have been heavily revamped, with their visuals, script and even bits of lore reworked to various extent. We have further adjusted the difficulty of the campaigns, making sure that Easy setting, now known as Casual, becomes more accessible to everyone, while Mental retains, if does not up the challenge a bit. In addition to this revamped campaign, we have prepared 6 new Special Operations and 1 new Co-Op, which replaces one of the previous maps.
    - Allied Special Op Mission Digital Demon
    - Allied Special Op Mission Convergence
    - Allied Special Op Mission Parasomnia
    - Soviet Special Op Mission Trophy Hunter
    - Epsilon Special Op Mission Fallen Ashes
    - Epsilon Special Op Mission Split Seconds
    - Epsilon Co-Op Mission Monochromatic

What's more, new Challenge maps have been designed and added to the game, four of them.
    - Aberration Challenge against all 3 Allied subfactions with a tech level switcher
    - Ironwall Challenge against the armies of China with a powerful experimental weapon
    - Gladiators Challenge where your enemy has advanced weapon-disabling effects in use
    - Judgement Challenge where a mysterious force is capable of perishing all of your bases

There's been a whole lot of balance changes, new units, structures and powers added to the tech tree, as well as numerous other additions and bugfixes. The changelog for this update is the largest so far, with many of its additions possible by AlexB's continuous efforts with Ares DLL. See the full changelog here.



As of version 3.3.5, Mental Omega includes:
    - A completely new faction: The Foehn Revolt
    - Free multiplayer services through CnCNet5
    - 12 subfactions with their own unique sets of units
    - 16 unique stolen tech units, 4 per faction
    - 98 single player missions, including a campaign for Yuri
    - 36 cooperative missions explicitly for 2 players
    - 22 challenge maps for solo or 2 players
    - a challenging AI, and an overly challenging AI
    - new skirmish/multiplayer maps, around 600 total
    - new skirmish/multiplayer game modes, 20 total
    - heavily updated visuals & sound effects
    - new soundtracks, unique for each side
    - oh, and save/load functions, if you missed it

This is the final stretch. We thank you for the continuous support over the many years, and as the annual ModdDB Mod of the Year 2020 Awards have entered its TOP100 phase with Mental Omega once again being one of 100, we would like to ask for your support in this competition once more. Vote for MOre.

Stay tuned for more updates! The big finale is still ahead!
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